Gratitude. Grief. Growth.

Tag Archives: Grace

Saturday morning, when it was time to start the three-hour drive to fetch Vivi from camp, G handed me his keys. “You drive? I’m still eh-sleepy.”

Not a problem. Except I HATE driving his minivan. I can’t see anything in that vehicle. There are extra mirrors stuck to the side mirrors. DVD screens that block the back window. Paper and shit hanging from his rearview mirror (seriously, he still has the car rider pass from two years ago up there). The air conditioning is set on 62 and blowing hard enough to sweep Dorothy out of Kansas. Every control is opposite from my car. He puts the parking brake on even when he’s parked on flat ground. Makes me nuts but that’s why it’s his car and not mine.

I got over all of that stuff by the end of our driveway, but as soon as I started going up the hill to leave the neighborhood, the sun hit the windshield and I was blinded by…schmutz. Not rain or dew or ice…just blurry gunk.

I searched blindly with my left hand for the wiper/washer control. “What are you doing?” he sighed from the passenger seat.

“Trying to clean the windshield–it’s got crap all over it. I can’t see.”

“It looks fine to me,” he retorted, then showed me the wiper control. The wash helped some but I still felt like I was peering through a gray haze.

In the drive thru while we waited on breakfast, I kept squinting and bobbing around looking for a clean spot. “Is it on the inside?” I wiped the inside of the glass with a fast food napkin. It came away clean. I muttered, “It’s something on the outside…”

“DO YOU WANT ME TO DRIVE? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT?”

“NO, I WANT TO CLEAN THE WINDSHIELD SO I CAN SEE TO DRIVE.”

“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WINDSHIELD.”

“Maybe you can’t see it…” I started, but G cut me off with a scoff-snorted “…oh for godsake! REALLY?”

I turned on him. “I’m serious! You forget I’ve had Lasik surgery! I have better than 20/20 vision! IT IS POSSIBLE THAT I ACTUALLY CAN SEE SOMETHING THAT YOU PHYSICALLY CAN’T!”

The sweet teenager with a blonde pony tail leaned out of the drive thru window to pass me our drinks with a worried smile. It wasn’t even 8 a.m. and she’s got people hollering about ghosts in a silver minivan. I jammed the massive cup of Diet Coke in the console and passed food and drinks to the boys.

That’s when I remembered my Pop’s trick from his truck driving days: if your windshield is foggy, pour a little Co-Cola on it. So I pulled up to that spot where they make you wait when the fries aren’t ready and hopped out of the car with my Diet Coke and a handful of napkins. I poured a line of Diet Coke across my side of the windshield and started rubbing in circles. GUNK sluffed off of that glass enough to turn the napkin black on both sides. Pure-T GUNK.

I tried not to gloat.

(I think it’s the citric acid in the Coke that works the magic, so Diet works just as well as raglar. And I guess you heathens who drink gagPepsigag could try that. I would ask our resident chemist but he still swears there is nothing wrong with that windshield. AHEM.)

((Oh, and of course after all that drive thru drama, the story took a stupid turn 20 minutes down the road when Carlos announced he had a tummy ache which precipitated us turning right around for home, them staying there all day while I drove across the state in my own dang car. And damn if the windshield was covered in bugs but I was low on Diet Coke at that point and had to prioritize.))

Anywho.

This incident got me to thinking. I honestly do think that maybe this windshield thing that G and I have argued about every time I have driven his car for the last five years might be grounded in a very real physical difference. He thinks I’m just making it up because he doesn’t see anything there. I think he’s being a stubborn ass because IT’S RIGHT THERE. But the crux of our disagreement is data-based: my eyes take in a different range of data. My experience of the world is different than his when it comes to looking at things. He looks at the glass and sees the same level of gray as he does elsewhere (honestly, there are 40-11 pairs of reading glasses laying around this house and none of them are mine). I look at the same glass and see a problem that needs fixing. Instead of assuming that the other person might see it differently, we start arguing with each other about who is RIGHT.

There are people who can’t see the difference between red and green. I’m not going to argue with them about that in the drive thru. There are synesthetes who can smell colors and see sounds–I hope they wouldn’t blame me for not knowing what blue smells like. People lose taste buds as they age, so maybe the dinner really is too spicy for the kids.

The longer I spent in the car by myself, the more I thought about how often we forget (or ignore) that other people might be experiencing the same world in a vastly different way. They’re really not doing it just to be stubborn asses or precious snowflakes or whatever word we use to mock those who react to the world in a different way.

If I, as a white person, have a hard time seeing racism, that doesn’t mean it’s not there–it means I don’t see it. It’s up to me to polish my lens so that I can see it. I sure can see misogyny that a person who hasn’t moved through the world as a woman might miss. No one can tell me that we live in a post-sexism world because I have a lifetime of experiences that are grounded in the inequal balance of power between the sexes.

We cannot argue people out of their lived experience. We shouldn’t even try.

Imagine how different our morning would have been if I hadn’t needed to make G admit that the windshield was dirty–that I was RIGHT. Imagine if he had helped me clean the windshield even though it didn’t interfere with his driving? What if we had met each other with grace and generosity?

Meeting people with grace and generosity, even when they are describing a world that is different from what you see. Helping fix a problem that doesn’t affect you. Asking questions to understand another’s experience–that’s like pouring some Coke on your windshield. Clears things so we can see each other better.

One day, I walked into Carlos’ classroom with him. A little girl I hadn’t seen before was sitting all by herself in the book nook. She wore a pink plaid sundress, white sandals, and a big white ribbon in her hair. She was crying so hard that the bow bounced up and down with each shake of her little body.

The teachers and the rest of the class were going about their business. I’ve seen kids sitting alone like that before at the Calm Table, where they go to get away from the bustle of the classroom when they need to regroup. But this little girl wasn’t just sniveling or glowering–she hiccupped with each little sob.

I’m lucky to have a job that doesn’t mind if I’m 15 minutes late…later, so I sat down next to her on one of those tiny chairs. “Hey, are you OK?” I asked with my hand on her back.

She snurfled out a, “I…want…mommy.”

“Oh, sugar. I bet you do. Well, I’m Carlos’s mommy. Would you like a hug?” She bobbed her dripping little chin and slid over onto my lap.

“Is this your first day?” She nodded. I asked her name and she told me. I patted her back and rocked her a little bit while the rest of the kids thundered around us.

I asked Carlos to come over and say hello and he did. I told her the names of the other kids but she shrank up against me when they got too close. She wasn’t ready for them.

She held a Barbie picture book in her hand so I asked her about it. For a few minutes, we talked about books and what kind of shoes we like and how purple is her favorite color.

When it was time for me to go, she wobbled a bit but held up. I hoped she would be there in the afternoon when I picked up Carlos so I could congratulate her for being brave. But she was already gone by the time I got there.

It took a few more days before we crossed paths again at drop off time. I walked Carlos out to the playground to join his class and a bright shiny girl waved across the distance. I waved back and called her name. She ran up to me and stopped about a foot away. Just beaming.

I said, “Hey! I know you!”

She giggled and said, “You saw me when I was crying!”

We’ve been friends ever since. Her choice of words has stayed with me–“You saw me when I was crying.” She could have said, “You gave me a hug” or “I sat on your lap.” But she experienced that moment as “you saw me.” I was struggling and you saw me.

Isn’t that what we’re all crying out for? To be seen.

Sometimes it’s easy for the mean voice in my head to convince me that I am The Invisible Girl. That I could sit right down in the center of the big spinning world and cry my eyes out, but the world would whirl right past me. It’s not true, but that mean voice is an inveterate liar.

To see someone. To walk up and say, “I see you there.” It’s the simplest of gifts.

Like this:

Half a year after Richard died, I visited San Francisco for the first time with my sister, Gay, and our sister-in-law, Beth. Gay was there for a conference. Beth and I were there to stay at the Palace Hotel on someone else’s expense account. Man, they have plush robes at that hotel. Nicest robe I ever almost stole. Also a sauna, town cars at your disposal, a brunch buffet with everything from sushi to crepes, a concierge every 20 feet. We were living high on the hog that week. I don’t know how I’ll ever come back down to the Sleep Inn between the interstate and Sonic.

One morning, Gay had meetings to attend so Beth and I were on our own to navigate the city. We decided to do some sight seeing up on Nob Hill (because you can’t get lost if you keep going uphill!). My friend, Gleam, had a thing for labyrinths and had told me much about the labyrinths at Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill.

Now….I’m not normally one for church. At least Grace is an Episcopal church–they don’t make me itch and twitch quite as severely. I’m a church tourist, at best. Grace, however, quickly became one of my most favorite spaces I’ve ever had the privilege of visiting. I found real sanctuary there. It’s a welcoming congregation. The first chapel I stepped into remembered thousands of lives lost to AIDS. The “Life of Christ” altar by Keith Haring is surrounded by symbols of many faiths and a simple circle for people like me. This was Haring’s last piece of art. He died two weeks later from complications of AIDS, in 1990.

When we were there that October of 2005, the main aisle had been decorated with a genuinely soul-lifting art installation. This tiny thumbnail is the only record of it that I could find (because 2005 is like the Jurassic Period of the Internet). Translucent ribbons swooped from the ceiling, suspended by invisible wires. Hues transformed from deepest red toward the altar to pale sunshine yellow down the aisle. The floating fabric sculpture reminded me of a fiery spirit, 100 feet long. The motion of it, the color, the space inside it–all took my breath away. While Beth explored the side aisles, I slipped into a pew and sat quietly, just so I could share the same space with the fiery spirit. That’s when I began to cry. I missed Richard so deeply. He and I had spent many an hour exploring the cathedrals of Europe. Now I was learning to adventure on my own.

Beth had been giving me my space, but we eventually came back together and talked about what to do next. I felt like I was holding her back, but there was one thing left to do at Grace. I trusted her enough to risk making a fool of myself. As we stepped out into the afternoon light, I turned to her and confessed, “I want to walk the labyrinth.”

She was game. Beth’s not usually one for any kind of mumbo-jumbo–she was totally humoring me. “You’re going to need to explain it to me. I don’t want to screw it up.” I told her what I knew of them from Gleam, who had made a pilgrimage to Chartres with the last of her strength. Cancer took her the next year.

Here are the instructions for the Grace Labyrinth:

The labyrinth has only one path so there are no tricks to it and no dead ends. The path winds throughout and becomes a mirror for where we are in our lives. It touches our sorrows and releases our joys. Walk it with an open mind and an open heart.

Three stages of the walk

Purgation (Releasing) ~ A releasing, a letting go of the details of your life. This is the act of shedding thoughts and distractions. A time to open the heart and quiet the mind.

Illumination (Receiving) ~ When you reach the center, stay there as long as you like. It is a place of meditation and prayer. Receive what is there for you to receive.

Union (Returning) ~ As you leave, following the same path out of the center as you came in, you enter the third stage, which is joining God, your Higher Power, or the healing forces at work in the world. Each time you walk the labyrinth you become more empowered to find and do the work for which you feel your soul is reaching.

Beth and I chose different starting points and began our walk. We had the place to ourselves, which let me let go of some of my inhibitions about doing something so mystical in public. I focused on the soles of my feet and the contact they shared with the ground, just like in Buddhist walking meditation. I felt safe in the maze. Not rushing, just doing. The rhythm of my steps did help me let go of the details of my life. I felt the grief slip away, the anxiety abate. My quieting mind sloughed away the months of grief, the months of worry, winnowing it all down to the real question that weighed down my heart. The question I wanted to ask of God when I got to the center of the labyrinth:

“Is Richard OK?”

I know he can’t be here. I know he’s not here. I know I can’t know where he is. But…is he OK?

That’s when God said DUH to me. Not in a mean way, more in an “of course, sweetie, bless your heart” way. It wasn’t a thunder thump of a DUH. I was open to what was there for me to receive and the gift that I received was a simple, quiet knowledge that Richard was beyond all the hurt. I was the one who was hurting, but I could set down my worry about him. That’s the burden I left in the center of the labyrinth.

On my exit journey, I did experience Union. I felt empowered to do the work for which my soul was reaching. Healing myself. I smiled a lot on the way out.

The story of the labyrinth came back to me this week because every time I’ve tried to write a word about anything, my mouth is filled with ashes and grief for my friend, Chris. Last week, Chris’ beloved daughter died suddenly, leaving two beautiful and bright children whose hearts could be broken forever by this. I worry for Chris because no parent should have to lose a child and Chris has had this happen to her twice. Both of her daughters have gone before her and that’s not fair. There are no words for what it is.

In the autumn of 2005, when I was sunk in grief and learning to live in the world again, I got back from San Francisco and began to plan my solo trip to Paris. Chris, Gleam, and the rest of our writer bunch cheered me on. The week before my trip, we gathered together for my bon voyage dinner. Chris presented me with a soft blue beret and scarf to keep me warm in Paris. She had knitted it from the leftover yarn from her grandson’s blanket. The son of the mother who is gone now. The blanket, the beret, the boy–they’re here. The beloved is gone.

I hope that grief, even a grief this abysmal, can be like the labyrinth. A path we all walk, in our way, that teaches us to receive what we need to receive and empowers us to continue the work for which our souls reach.

If you pray, pray for Chris and Wayne and Amy and Charlie and Emma. May they find some peace on this journey.